8 Replies to “A liberian in Casablanca”

Well, I may have arrived a little late here to view these images during the same time that you did, but still they hold their fascination and appeal. There is such a wonderful blend of old and new that creates this feeling of an enduring, endearing, timeless presence that pervades the new and tells of its evolution and progress, its change, and its depth of history. As always in your images, you provide a route through, above, and around the place you visit, and offer an exploration through a visual narrative…and as always with your photographs they tell a story somehow, don’t you think?

The first few images using the outline technique have a very surreal feel to them, an abstract quality that is hard to determine without referencing the word ‘dream’. It’s almost as if they deconstruct the image, assign it to paper and then the outlines are filled in again to create just an impression. In regard to the story that you tell, they are expressive of your perspective in being there, a sort of fleeting glimpse and transient view of a traveller.

And something else that became apparent early on in the photographs was the searing sunlight, the perpetual shine that creates the most intense dappled shadows and produces shafts of light as it falls between objects. In one or two of the photos, the brilliant sunlight reflects on the camera lens to produce radiant shafts of light. Curiously, these shafts of light are most prominent in the images of the mosque or temple: they fall almost to the ground, and as you are holding the camera they seem to full upon you as well. It’s quite something, very special in fact.

I have no doubt that whilst your time in Casablanca was unexpected, the occasion presented many positive opportunities to linger amongst the palm trees and without compromise, dream a while of all things great and small, or sit in the sunlight and reflect on your African adventure. But whatever it was that you did, no doubt it was time to yourself that was needed and appreciated in ways only you can know. I am a big believer that all things happen for a reason, and this for you was no exception. And what’s more, it is a beautiful place to be stuck in, so perhaps you were doubly blessed in being there.